


Tumblr drabbles

by involuntaryorange



Category: Inception (2010), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4813670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/involuntaryorange/pseuds/involuntaryorange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles that were originally posted on Tumblr. I'll update whenever I've got a new one!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Open Up (A/E)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://involuntaryorange.tumblr.com/post/129168322840/open-up).

It’s pure happenstance the first time Eames notices it; he and Arthur are both working late in the abandoned loft where the team has set up camp, Eames refining his latest forgery and Arthur tuning up the PASIV. Eames happens to glance over at Arthur just as Arthur lets loose a yawn.

Normally, prim-and-proper Arthur would cover his mouth when yawning, but both of his hands are in the middle of some kind of delicate procedure, so Eames is treated to the sight of Arthur’s nose scrunching up and his mouth opening so wide that Eames can see the fillings in his back molars. It’s kind of adorable, although Eames would _never_ admit it.

But there’s something else.

“Is there… something in your mouth?” Eames asks.

Arthur scratches his nose against his sleeve. “Excuse me?”

“I thought I saw something when you yawned. Like a piece of gum or something. Lucky you didn’t drop it into the PASIV; bet that would jam it up nicely.”

“I don’t have gum in my mouth,” Arthur says, quizzically.

“Oh,” Eames says. “I guess I’m just seeing things. It’s been a long day.”

“It was probably just my tongue stud,” Arthur says, off-hand, starting to close up the PASIV.

Eames drops the spectacles he’s been practicing chewing thoughtfully on. “Your _what_?”

“My… tongue stud?” Arthur is looking at Eames like he’s slow. To be fair, that’s how Arthur usually looks at Eames, but this time it’s more pointed. To illustrate, he sticks out his tongue, and yep, that’s a barbell, straight through the dead center of his tongue.

Eames drops the spectacles again, having just managed to pick them up.

“ _When did you have that done_?” Eames asks urgently.

“Uh, when I was eighteen?”

“You have _not_ had that this entire time.”

“My tongue begs to differ.”

“How have I never noticed it??”

Arthur shrugs. “You probably just weren’t looking at my mouth.”

Eames laughs. “Trust me, darling, I’ve been looking at your mouth.”

Arthur is practically _smirking_. Eames knows this because he is looking at Arthur’s mouth.

“Well,” Arthur says, snapping the PASIV shut and lifting it up, “I suppose we see what we expect to see.” And with that he walks out of the loft, swinging the case back and forth nonchalantly.

Eames collapses into his chair. He decides to just leave the spectacles on the floor.


	2. Three Drabbles from Three Perspectives (aka The One with the Puppy)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [here](http://involuntaryorange.tumblr.com/post/117541040720/three-drabbles-from-three-perspectives).

Eames found the dog in an alley while he was supposed to be tailing a mark. It looked so helpless that he just _had_ to pick it up and bring it back to the warehouse. He had a thing for pit bulls – misunderstood creatures, so often abused and then blamed for being afraid of people. “I would never let a pit bull near my child.” “It’s in their nature to be violent.”

It was a frigid day and the puppy was shivering. From the cold or from fear? Either way, Eames tucked him into his jacket. His little paw pads scrabbled against Eames’s chest at first, but soon he relaxed and sank into Eames’s body heat.

 

When Eames first showed up at the warehouse with a stray dog, Arthur rolled his eyes. It was so like Eames, to impulsively take pity on some pathetic creature and assume that he could help it. But the more he watched Eames with the puppy — which he had begun calling “Sir Frederick,” or “Freddie” for short — the more he felt a creeping sense of fondness bleeding into his view of Eames. Maybe it was Eames’s attentiveness, the way he was constantly carrying Freddie around and laying absentminded kisses on his head. Maybe it was the contrast between this tiny, bumbling, helpless animal and Eames’s practiced, capable sturdiness. Whatever it was, Arthur felt an unfamiliar sense of envy, although whether he was envious of Eames or of the puppy, he wasn’t sure.

 

OH MY GOD HELLO YOU ARE WARM AND FRIENDLY

YOU HAVE A SPIKY FACE AND I LOVE YOU

YOU SMELL LIKE A FOREST I LIKE FORESTS I LIKE TO RUN AROUND AND DIG CAN WE GO DIG

IS THAT A BONE I LOVE BONES

YOU KNOW WHAT I WOULD LIKE IS SOME FOOD DO YOU HAVE ANY

I WAS COLD BUT NOW I AM WARM THANK YOU

DO YOU HAVE ANY FOOD THERE IS FOOD IN THE FORESTS

WHO IS THAT MAN CAN I PEE ON HIM


	3. DJ Cobb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written because a-forger-and-a-point-man requested it after photos of Leo DJing a party made the rounds.

“Here’s one I just discovered,” Cobb says into the microphone, Bose headphones draped around his neck. “It’s called ‘Sunny Came Home,’ by Shawn Colvin.” He fiddles with his iPod and soon the club fills with the sound of melancholic guitar chords.

Across the room, Ariadne drops her head onto Arthur’s shoulder. “Please make it stop.”

“He looks like he’s having so much fun,” Eames says, clearly torn.

Arthur pats Ariadne’s back. “I’m kind of enjoying the nostalgia. I feel like I’m a freshman in college all over again.”

“You listened to Shawn Colvin in college?” Ariadne says, muffled by Arthur’s jacket. Arthur shrugs in response, jostling her face. “No wonder you never got laid.”

Arthur scoffs. “I’ll have you know I was voted sluttiest resident on my dorm floor, freshman year. I seduced _at least_ four girls by playing this song on the guitar.”

Eames says, scowling, “I don’t want to hear about this.”

“Oh, Eames,” Arthur sighs, pulling him towards his other, Ariadne-free shoulder. “You’re the only one I’m seducing with nineties folk rock guitar ballads anymore.”

The three of them sway in time to the music as the song draws to an ennui-filled end. Cobb is immediately yelling into the microphone again.

“Hey! Have you guys heard of the Gin Blossoms?”


	4. In the reign of Queen Dick (Johnlock)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I came across beggars-opera’s [“Best of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue”](http://beggars-opera.tumblr.com/tagged/language) posts, and immediately decided that I *had* to write a ficlet using as many of the terms as I could cram in. The following is the fruit of my labor. See the notes after the drabble for translations of the terms.

“How lovely to see you, Mr. Hopkins,” Sherlock intoned as he passed John in the vestibule shared by their flats.

“Shut your bone box, you fribble,” John huffed. “You look like Death’s head upon a mop stick.”

“Ah, Mr. Watson, pissing down my back as usual. You have no better chance of besting me in a battle of flash lingo than of milking a pidgeon.”

“How droll to hear about winning battles from a long-tongued lollpoop who wouldn’t know just-ass from a fartleberry!” John exclaimed, standing taller.

“You are a gentleman of three outs,” Sherlock said, jabbing John’s lapel with a finger, “and I’d rather huffle than go near your cock alley with a three-meter lazybones.”

“I’d rather box the Jesuit and get cock roaches than go near your mantrap.”

Sherlock sneered. “It would be only by the grace of God that a Frenchified back gammon player such as yourself would yield mere cock roaches. How long have you been pissing pins and needles?”

“I’ll show you a back gammon player,” John declared, and he began to bagpipe Sherlock like a Covent Garden nun.

Sherlock looked as betwattled as if he had been the victim of goose riding. “I knew not that you were such a gobble prick,” he gasped, reeling like an admiral of the narrow seas.

“Ah, I can do much more than gobble,” John said. “You will soon be riding St. George, and I assure you, I will not make a coffee house of your arse.”

“I knew you would be no rantallion!” Sherlock exclaimed as John unbuttoned his breeches, revealing his sugar stick.

By the time they left the vestibule, John was not the only Mr. Hopkins of the pair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Terms used, in order** (definitions quoted directly from the dictionary)
> 
>  
> 
>  _Queen Dick._ To the tune of the life and death of Queen Dick. That happened in the reign of Queen Dick; i.e., never.
> 
>  _Mr. Hopkins._ A ludicrous address to a lame or limping man, being a pun on the word hop.
> 
>  _Bone box._ The mouth.
> 
>  _Fribble._ An effeminate fop.
> 
>  _Death's head upon a mop stick._ A poor miserable emaciated fellow.
> 
>  _Pissing down any one's back._ Flattering him.
> 
>  _Flash lingo._ The canting or slang language.
> 
>  _Milk the pidgeon._ To endeavour at impossibilities.
> 
>  _Long-tongued._ Loquacious, not able to keep a secret.
> 
>  _Lollpoop._ A lazy, idle drone.
> 
>  _Just-ass._ A punning appellation for a justice.
> 
>  _Fartleberries._ Excrement hanging to the hairs about the anus,  &c. of a man or woman.
> 
>  _Gentleman of three outs._ That is, without money, without wit, and without manners; some add another out, i.e. without credit.
> 
>  _Huffle, to huffle._ A piece of beastiality too filthy for explanation.
> 
>  _Cock alley._ The private parts of a woman. (I took some liberties with the terms for female genitalia — IO)
> 
>  _Lazybones._ An instrument like a pair of tongs, for old, or very fat people, to take any thing from the ground without stooping.
> 
>  _To box the Jesuit, and get cock roaches._ Masturbation. A crime it is said much practiced by the reverend fathers of that society.
> 
> _Mantrap. A woman's comodity._
> 
>  _Frenchified._ Infected with the venereal disease.
> 
>  _Back gammon player._ A sodomite.
> 
>  _Pissing pins and needles._ To have gonorrhea.
> 
>  _Bagpipe, to bagpipe._ A lascivious practice too indecent for explanation. (I think we can guess what it is — IO)
> 
>  _Covent Garden nun._ A prostitute.
> 
>  _Betwattled._ Surprised, confounded, out of one's senses.
> 
>  _Goose riding._ A goose, whose neck is greased, being suspended by the legs to a cord tied to two trees or high posts, a number of men on horseback, riding full speed, attempt to pull off the head; which if they effect, the goose is their prize.
> 
>  _Gobble prick._ A rampant, lustful woman.
> 
>  _Admiral of the narrow seas._ One who from drunkenness vomits into the lap of the person sitting opposite to him.
> 
>  _Riding St. George._ The woman uppermost in the amorous congress, that is, the dragon upon St. George. This is said to be the way to get a bishop.
> 
>  _Coffee house._ A necessary house. _To make a coffee house of a woman's ***_ , to go in and out and spend nothing.
> 
>  _Rantallion_. One whose scrotum is so relaxed as to be longer than his penis, i.e. whose shot pouch is longer than the barrel of his piece.
> 
>  _Sugar stick_. The virile member.


	5. Inception Thanksgiving ficlet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to drabble for Thanksgiving, so here you are!

“You do realize,” Arthur says when he opens Dom’s front door, “that you’re not supposed to actually _dress like a Pilgrim_ for Thanksgiving.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Eames replies, stepping into the foyer and handing Arthur a bottle of wine. Arthur looks at the label and wrinkles his nose.

“…Looking at _anyone else_ around you? Where did you even find shoes with buckles?” Arthur takes Eames’s jacket and hangs it up in the hall closet. “Actually, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“And yet I’m not the most ridiculously attired person here,” Eames says, looking meaningfully at Arthur’s apron, which has a picture of a turkey and says _Gobble Till You Wobble!_

“Shut up. It’s Dom’s.” Arthur gestures to the hallway with the bottle of — very nice, thank you — wine. “Everyone’s in the family room, watching football.”

***

“Eames is here,” Arthur announces to the family room. There’s a chorus of greetings, and everyone seems flatteringly happy to see Eames, although they might just be drunk.

“Nice hat,” Yusuf says. “There aren’t enough hats with buckles these days.”

Eames doffs said hat in acknowledgment of the compliment. “Thank you, Yusuf. You are clearly a man of fine breeding and good taste.”

“He complimented my apron earlier,” Arthur yells from what must be the kitchen.

“I take it back,” Eames says.

“Hey, Philippa gave me that apron,” Dom protests. It would have been a more compelling argument if Philippa hadn’t chosen that precise moment to run through the living room wearing underpants on her head. “Philippa, honey, no running in the house!”

“Oh, come on!” Ariadne shouts at the television. “He clearly went out of bounds!”

Eames looks at the TV. “Arthur said there was _football_ on. This isn’t football.”

“That’s what _I’ve_ been saying,” Yusuf replies.

Ariadne rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Get down from your high horse. You don’t see me complaining that Thanksgiving was actually last month.”

“You’re _Canadian_?” Dom expels the word from his mouth like it’s dirty.

“Vancouver, baby,” Ariadne says, throwing a very unintimidating gang sign.

***

Eames wanders into the kitchen because that’s apparently where the beer is. Arthur is elbow-deep in what appears to be a huge pot of mashed potatoes. He has flour on his nose.

“Why are you doing the cooking if it’s Dom’s house?” Eames asks.

“Because if Dom were in charge of cooking we’d be eating Hot Pockets for dinner.” Arthur adds a frankly alarming amount of butter to the potatoes and continues mashing.

Eames grabs a beer from the fridge and cracks it open. While he drinks, he leans against the counter and watches Arthur work. He has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and Eames can see the veins in his forearms as he works the masher. The kitchen is a good ten degrees warmer than the rest of the house, and a small piece of Arthur’s hair has broken free of its shellacked prison and is curving over his forehead.

“If you’d like to make yourself useful,” Arthur says as he tosses the masher in the sink, “you could stir the gravy.”

Eames shrugs and heads for the stove, but before he reaches it Arthur throws a wadded-up piece of cloth at him. He unfurls it to find an apron that says “KEEP CALM AND BASTE ON.” Arthur smirks as Eames pulls the apron over his head.

***

Arthur finally carries the turkey out to the table and lays it down with a flourish. 

“Now let’s go around the table and everyone can say what they’re thankful for.”

Arthur groans. “Seriously, Dom?”

“I’m thankful to be back with my kids. And I’m thankful to all of you for helping me.” Dom looks expectantly at Ariadne.

“Um, I’m thankful that I didn’t get stuck in limbo. And I’m thankful that your father-in-law is my advisor so I didn’t have to explain why I was gone for three months.”

“I’m thankful that you didn’t all kill me when you found out about the sedative,” Yusuf says. “And I’m thankful for my cats.”

“I’m thankful that Mr. Cobb retrieved me from limbo,” says Saito, who’s been sitting silently in the corner drinking the wine he brought, which everyone else is too afraid to touch. “Even though he took his time doing it. And I’m thankful that Robert Fischer has decided to pursue his lifelong dream of owning his own modern dance company.”

“Arthur?” Dom says. “What are you thankful for?”

Arthur heaves a sigh. “I’m thankful that I’m no longer chasing your ass around the globe.” His face softens, just a little. “I’m thankful to be with friends.”

“Your turn, Eames.”

Eames _hmmm_ s and takes a sip of his beer. Arthur is avoiding eye contact and fiddling with the carving knife. “I’m thankful for the memories of those we’ve lost and the promise of those we’ve gained. I’m thankful for second chances.”

Arthur snorts and mutters “more like _fifth_ chances,” but he’s turned a pleasing shade of pink. He busies himself with the turkey, hacking away at it with impressive finesse.

He gives Eames an entire leg.


	6. Calling in the Bomb Squad (A/E)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Here we go again,” Ariadne mutters to Yusuf as Arthur unbuttons his cuffs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aja asked for a rolled-up-sleeves fic, and this was my attempt to oblige her.

The first few times it was the subject of much covert amusement and later mockery over drinks, but at this point it’s just getting old. Honestly, you’d think it was the Victorian era, the way they react.

“Here we go again,” Ariadne mutters to Yusuf as Arthur unbuttons his cuffs.

“So if we draw on Ms. Farrowman’s empathetic tendences toward orphans,” Eames is saying as he draws a diagram on the whiteboard, “we should be able to— um— to access, uh, the subconscious— that is to say—“ Eames is saved from finishing his sentence when he drops his marker on the floor. He drags his attention away from Arthur’s newly-revealed forearms and looks down at the marker with a puzzled expression, as though it were some sort of small meteorite that had randomly fallen at his feet. Meanwhile, Arthur, who has resumed scribbling in his Moleskine, is oblivious.

“If we use Ms. Farrowman’s empathy for orphans…?” Dom prompts, which seems to have the effect of restarting Eames’s brain. He retrieves the marker and turns back to the board.

“Right, yes, we should be able to trigger her subconscious to feed us the combination for the safe,” Eames says, and then he’s off again on his strategizing. Ariadne rolls her eyes at Yusuf, who responds with the kind of _What can you do?_ shrug you give your spouse when the dog is scooting its butt across the living room rug.

It’s not like Arthur is any better; the last time Eames rolled his shirtsleeves up at work, Arthur spilled his coffee. Not on himself,of course — god forbid he ruin one of his precious suits — but on Ariadne’s lap.

Okay, so he bought her a really nice pair of replacement jeans that make her ass look fantastic. But it’s the principle of the thing.

And the principle of the thing, or maybe the thing itself, is that Arthur and Eames each turn into blithering idiots whenever the other rolls up his sleeves. Drinks are spilled, sentences are abandoned mid-word, hard drives are abruptly disconnected without ejecting… on one memorable occasion, a ball-point pen was broken in half, leaving Eames looking like he tried to rob a bank. Thank god they’ve never both had their sleeves rolled up at the same time; Ariadne can only imagine the chaos that would ensue.

And the other thing is that _everyone has noticed except for them_.

As far as Arthur and Eames are concerned, they’ve simply become clumsier, more absent-minded. Eames blames it on Yusuf’s new Somnacin blend, despite Yusuf’s vociferous protests. Arthur blames it on a lack of sleep, and Ariadne hasn’t had the heart to point out that they spend half their waking lives asleep.

And she gets it. She does. She’s watched enough West Wing episodes to appreciate the look of a man in an oxford with rolled-up sleeves. But at a certain point you move on from dumbfounded gaping to fucking. (That’s what Yusuf did after Arthur got Ariadne those new jeans.) Sometimes Ariadne feels like she’s one ruined thumb drive away from locking the two of them in a closet and not letting them out until they’ve defused the sexual tension.

As if on cue, Eames sends a mug skittering off the edge of a desk and watches helplessly as it shatters into a hundred pieces.

_You have got to be kidding me_ , Ariadne says to herself. Out loud, she says, “I think I saw a broom and dustpan in the utility room, Eames.”

He mutters something about Somnacin and heads off, leaving three of them shaking their heads and one of them still scribbling obliviously in his notebook.

“Arthur,” Ariadne says, causing him to snap his head up. “Maybe you should help Eames find the broom. I think it’s behind some boxes.”

“I’m pretty sure Eames is capable of moving boxes by himself.”

“You know how Eames is,” Ariadne says. She doesn’t know what that means, but she has a feeling it will work. And sure enough, Arthur huffs and unfolds himself from his chair, stalking toward the utility room.

Ariadne quickly looks around the room for something that could— _there, that looks like it’s the right height for wedging under a doorknob_. “Yusuf,” she hisses, “grab that chair and follow me.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Ariadne says with relish, “It’s time for a controlled detonation.”


	7. Simply the Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Erm,” Eames says, surveying what used to be the living room. “Did I miss a dildo lorry jackknifing outside our house?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble was entirely prompted by consultingreaders/sevenimpossiblethings and her [ridiculous brain](http://consultingreaders.tumblr.com/post/144252094751/in-the-latest-episode-of-pulling-headcanon).

“Erm,” Eames says, surveying what used to be the living room. “Did I miss a dildo lorry jackknifing outside our house?”

Arthur looks up from the silicone penises arrayed around him like the petals of a colorful, obscene flower. “No, this is me proving a point. Although I think there  _is_  a dildo named Laurie somewhere around here.”

“They have _names_?”

“Well, yeah.” Arthur shrugs as if to say _obviously these phalli have been christened._  “Some of them do, at least. Laurie is _Little Women_ -themed.”

Eames briefly wonders if he’s dreaming, but a) he remembers how he got here, and b) he’s not sure what secrets someone could be trying to extract with this particular set-up. And c) even the most skilled forger wouldn’t be able to replicate the captivating way that Arthur’s brow crinkles when he’s concentrating on something, be it a mark’s financial records or… or a pile of dildos.

“And what exactly is the point that you’re proving here, darling?”

***

The point turns out to be that Eames’s penis is the ideal size and shape.

“I have a spreadsheet and everything,” Arthur says, turning his laptop around to face Eames. “Your penis has the optimal length-to-girth-to-curvature ratio, and I have quantitative data to prove it.”

“That is… very thorough of you?”

“I thought you’d appreciate my methodology.”

“I suppose it’s better than going on Craigslist and rounding up a bunch of random men,” Eames says.

“That would introduce far too many other variables. Most notably, individual skill.” Arthur holds up a translucent purple dildo to the light.

Eames is struck by a realization and he’s not sure whether it horrifies him or turns him on. “Wait, have all of these _been inside you_?”

“Of course not,” Arthur scoffs. “That would hardly be objective. I cross-indexed their measurements with their average ratings on three different sex toy websites.”

“I… don’t know what to say.”

“You could say that I was right when I said you had the best penis. Now I have proof that your penis is _objectively_  the best of all possible penes.”

Eames decides to ignore the fact that Arthur apparently knows the irregular plural of “penis” and focus on the… meat of the issue, so to speak. “But I don’t care if my penis is the _objective_  best.”

“You don’t?” Arthur looks bewildered.

“No,” Eames says, sweeping aside several dildos so that he can kneel on the floor next to Arthur. “I only care that it’s the _subjective_ , Arthur-specific best.”

Arthur half-smiles at that, and the dimple that appears on his cheek is more proof that he’s really here and really Arthur. “Well, it’s that too.”

“Hmmm.” Eames examines the sex shop wreckage surrounding them. “But how can we be sure?” He picks up a fluorescent green monstrosity. “I think this calls for a double-blind study.”

Arthur leaps to his feet, laptop in hand. “I’ll start a new spreadsheet!” he calls as he heads for the bedroom.


End file.
